Essex v. Kobach

Under the state Constitution, every ten years, the Kansas legislature must draw new districts for the United States Congress, the Kansas Senate, the Kansas House of Representatives and the Kansas Board of Education.1 Since the 2010 decennial census, the legislature has failed to approve new maps. While legislators publicly demurred that they had done the best they could, the impasse resulted from a bitter ideological feud—largely over new Senate districts. The feud primarily pitted GOP moderates against their more *1074conservative GOP colleagues. Failing consensus, the process degenerated into…